Screwing Around Captures The High Ground

People are in search of mirth
Of which there is a dearth
And if what's offered up is pun-ny
They'll like it even if it's not funny.
#FindingJoyWithAWordPlayToy

It's A Puzzlement

The Emperor's new clothes
Display his adipose.
So why do you suppose
It is that which he chose?
#MirrorMirrorOnTheWallWhoWillHaveTheGreatestFall

Thoughts About The Yankees

It is interesting to note that Joe Girardi was the Phillies manager at the start of the season, when they were floundering.  Of course, Girardi had previously been the Yankees manager.  The Yankees did win the World Series back in 2009, but there has been a drought since.  You have to wonder whether managing the Yankees becomes unlike managing other teams, because of the overwhelming media attention, in which case it is inevitable to manage not to lose, rather than to win.  At the time the Yankees let Girardi go, there was talk about him being distant from his players.  I'm belaboring this bit of history, because I wonder if something similar happened to Aaron Boone.  The talk in Twitter is about bringing in Mattingly and Jeter to replace Boone and Cashman (GM).   But I haven't seen anyone talk about the pressurized environment that they operate under.  Can anything be done about that?  I don't know, but I'd like to see some chatter about that. 

I actually think that Cashman did quite a good job this year/last year.  Trading for Harrison Bader late in the season was a great deal.  Likewise, trading for Andrew Benintendi was the right move, though he got hurt and was entirely out of the playoffs.  Together they eliminated the Yankees outfield woes plus Benintendi could bat leadoff, filling the slot that DJ LeMahieu normally fills.  That both of these players ended up not participating in the playoffs was a definite problem, but it can't be blamed on Cashman.  

The one trade I wasn't happy about was getting Josh Donaldson in the preseason.  I would have preferred it had the Yankees kept Gio Urshela.  But it was a package deal and trading Gary Sanchez was a big thing as just a few years earlier he was viewed as the future of the Yankees.  Yankees catching, from a defensive point of view, definitely ticked upward with the acquisition of Jose Trevino.  

Overall - it seems to me that Cashman did a very good job during the past year.  I feel less good about Aaron Boone's performance for the following reasons.

There were mental mistakes made by players who don't normally make them.  This showed up mainly on defense.  Aaron Judge running in front of Harrison Bader right before the baseball landed in Bader's glove, which he then dropped for an error, was perhaps the most egregious example.  Bader surely had been instructed to take all the balls he could reach in left center field, to take the pressure off of Giancarlo Stanton. What were the instructions for Bader and Judge about the balls hit to right center field?  That Judge made an apparent mistake suggests the instructions weren't clear to him, or the matter hadn't been previously addressed.  Preparation of the players is ultimately a managerial responsibility.  The stress of the playoffs is likely to inadvertently reveal where the players are under prepared.  This was one glaring instance.

There was also the revolving door about who plays shortstop.  I didn't understand that, but evidently Boone lost his faith in Kiner-Falefa, the regular shortstop for the entire season.  The substituting at that position during the playoffs looked bush-league to me.  Indirectly, I think it was why there was an error on a double-play ball hit to Gleyber Torres, who made a gentle toss to the bag, but Kiner-Falefa had already scooted past the bag; I suppose to avoid contact with the base runner.  That was a backbreaking play.  Again, I think ultimate responsibility for it goes to the manager.

The Yankees had a Jekyll and Hyde year.  Was it injuries that explained the big drop off in performance around mid season?  And did the Yankees have an unusually high number of injuries?  Or was something else going on?  The team that appeared in the playoffs was some combination of the early excellence and the later dismal performer. So the real question is whether the early excellence can return and, if so, can it last for a full season?  

I want to make on more note, this time about Aaron Judge, and compare him to Alex Bregman.  Judge has a huge swing and there is a definite upper cut in it.  Bregman has a much shorter stroke and his swing is flatter. Judge has clearly developed his swing over several years.  It seems designed to produce the long ball, making contact is a secondary concern.  Judge obviously did make a lot of contact during the season, as evidenced by his high batting average.  But he didn't do it in the playoffs.  Either the home run chase took too much out of him to recover from that, or against good pitching the swing Judge has is less reliable.  It makes you wonder.

The Seeds of Dis Chord

When your treasure drives you insane
So that your pleasure becomes your pain
Maybe it's time to sup
And then lighten up
Measure to measure we need a new refrain.
#VerySoonWeNeedADifferentTune

Aspiring To Be Dorothy Parker

The real difference between boys and girls
Is how they rank order swine and pearls
A pigskin is fine
For crossing the goal line
But for a gem of a phrase, the flag unfurls.
#GettingPastThePhaseWhenTheCleverPhraseCatchesUsInADaze

How Often Should You Blog?

When you have something to say
Then a blog post per day
Is surely the "write" way.

But if you're prone to stew
Then what you must do
Is frequent writing eschew.

To produce the occasional insight
Then one must continue to write
Tho perhaps with lower wattage
For the bulb used in the Aha! light.

The Guardians Versus The Yankees Tonight

A series that goes the full five games
With ups and down and a pitcher who tames
Batters who are hot and swing for the fences
Causing fans to utter expletives in past and future tenses.
#TonightsGameStartsAHalfHourEarlier

A Closer, A Closer, My Kingdom For A Closer

The disappointment in being a fan
When the outcome deviates from plan
It's very much like experiencing grief
Where the Yankees' pitching needs better relief.
#ThereIsAnotherGameTonightAndIWillBeWatching

A Bluff And Related Stuff

When randomizing the traditional action
Is simply to flip a coin
Yet a probability is merely a fraction
Then what with this method gets purloined?
#WhenYouDontWantOthersToSeeTheRandomOutcome

Caring For One's Parents As They Age

First limitations
Then a lack of transcendence
Become frustrations
Passed on to the dependents.
#ThinkingOfMomAndDadAsITurnIntoThem

A Red Letter Day

What if Kurt Gödel
Were to play Wordle
While wearing a girdle
Would that be absurd-el?
#OrWouldItSimplyBeIncomplete

A Knight In Rusty Armor

Finding the right life balance
Requires a variety of different talents
A bad joke if you please
Puts everyone at ease
While a damsel in distress needs gallants.
#AndPrayThereIsntAnEscapadeThatRequiresFallingOnAGrenade

The Humble Beginnings Of Creation

A writer is doing his penance
Idea fragments yet not a full sentence
For he must first pay
For what he will say
Only then will his word house have tenants.
#TheScatteredBrainShouldNotComplain

Life on a Chessboard

Having always been a pawn
I instinctively wanted to move to King-Four
And do so slightly after dawn

While not knowing what I’m doing it for.

#InARhymeYouCanEndASentenceInAPreposition

Marnie

Tippi Hedren

Took an Excedrin

Though her headache continued to linger

While Sean Connery
Played the con on Marnie

After slipping a ring upon her finger.

#AnotherGreatHitchcockMovie

Bullwinkle Is Coming

The squirrels are taking over
From the tall trees to the clover
Spy you they do
Enough to eschew
When near the sidewalk as they crossover.
#AsIGetOlderTheyGetBolder

Saggy

Skin that droops
Posture that stoops
The gray and the wrinkles
And the omnipresent tinkles.
#PerhapsAMetaphorForTheStateOfOurCountry

Male Fail (A Gender Bender)

This post is a reaction to the column by David Brooks from last Friday called The Crisis of Men and Boys.  Brooks, in turn, is commenting on a recent book by Richard Reeves called Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It.  I have not read the book yet and I'm undecided whether I will do that.  Reading about dismal things is not good for my own psyche.  So here I'm just going to make a few observations and then stop.

First, I already was aware of how male children of parents who have at most a high school education are struggling now.  This can readily be attributed to the decline in manufacturing and the concomitant decline in private sector unions, so the evident scarcity of decent well paying jobs that call for manual labor.  I think the country botched this terribly, both on the left and on the right, though for quite different reasons.  I do think it is fixable.  Better late than never.

Second, I was surprised that there were similar gender differences among the elite students, though this might be quite a different phenomenon than the one mentioned in the previous paragraph. Single parent households are less common for this group.  But having a helicopter parent probably happens fairly frequently with this sub-population and having the kids be over programmed is part and parcel of that.  Indeed, the whole Excellent Sheep phenomenon might be explained this way. If you asked whether there are gender differences among children as far as being obedient to parents, irrespective of whether the kids are high academic achievers or not, I'm not sure where I'd come down on that one.  And that sort of thing might depend on the generation when the kids went to school.  It also might depend on the culture/religion/nationality of the parents. But it wouldn't surprise me too much for gender to matter in aggregate.

Third, which is cause and which is effect might be hard to sort here, but there is no doubt that increased income and wealth inequality in the society overall is related to viewing school as a passport to well paying jobs and GPA as an important component of that.  This view existed even when I was in high school, but it clearly has intensified since.  In the current jargon, there is emphasis on extrinsic motivation in school and, in turn, that reduces consideration of intrinsic motivation (curiosity, passion for the subject matter) that might better promote learning.   With the focus on extrinsic motivation, school becomes something of an artificial game.  I'm guessing that it still affords an avenue for self-expression for some kids, as it did for me, but they are comparatively few.  The rest get jaded, because playing an artificial game makes it appear that nothing really matters.  Are there gender differences among those who can function amidst the artifice?  I suppose there are.

Fourth, this one may be less popular to mention these days but I believe school teachers are of lower quality now as compared to when I was in school because, especially for women teachers, there weren't many other paths for having a decent job when I was in school, but now there are.  And teaching is paid comparatively poorly now.  If earnings drive career choice, there is an obvious selection issue as to who becomes a teacher.  Nowadays, teachers may not be well equipped to accommodate students who don't seem engaged in class activities or to get them a specialist to deal with their learning disability.

Fifth, there may be a differential effect that technology plays on children.  I'm thinking particularly of video games and whether the skills learned in that domain are useful for school.  When my younger son was still in elementary school, he became very absorbed with Age of Empires and learned a lot of historical facts that way.  It gave him an interest in history for a while which was satisfied by watching shows on the History Channel. But he also developed a belief that learning should happen in a snap. Slower and more deliberate learning eluded him as a consequence.  Then, of course, there were all these other games that were either a race or a battle against some competition.  The games were absorbing, but might not have much to offer outside the gaming environment.  I don't know how this goes with girl children (both of my kids are boys).  But I can readily imagine gender differences here.

Let me wrap up with a thought experiment.  How would my cohort from elementary school, junior high, and high school fare if they started first grade in the late 1990s or early 2000s rather than in the early 1960s, but they had the same parents.  (How the parents would have adjusted to the times is outside the thought experiment).  In particular, would I have failed in school or done pretty much the same as I did back then?   I did have quite a lot of trouble with "fine motor activities".  For example, threading a needle was a challenge for me.  At school this manifest mainly via poor handwriting.  But I was either extraordinarily fortunate or socially adept in some way to make good friends within the school environment and I was able to learn a lot from my friends this way.  Would that skill have been impeded if I started school 40 years later?  If so, would it be the loneliness that would do me in and perhaps impede my academic performance?  Or would it be more evident that I'm an introvert and could be okay learning on my own?  I don't know, but I think this sort of thought experiment useful for others to consider, before focusing on remedies.  We tend to look for solutions before we understand the problem we're trying to solve. We shouldn't do that here.